


Prelude to Terror: The Rescue

by Sandman91



Series: Children of Mandalore [1]
Category: Star Wars
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-12-21 06:28:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sandman91/pseuds/Sandman91
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Jedi Apprentice is sent to a Yuuzhan Vong held world to gather intelligencefor the coming GA attack. When she does not report in, military commanders and members of the Jedi decide to send a Mandalorian Recovery Team to rescue her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

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**Prelude to Terror: The Rescue**

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Dramatis Personae

Baydo Titus; Mandalorian Supercommando (male human)  
Beluin Uluar; Mandalorian Supercommando (male Zabrak)  
Dawk; Mandalorian Supercommando, medic (female human)  
Dyir Carud; Mandalorian Supercommando (male human)  
Elai Kareb; Mandalorian Supercommando (male human)  
Falas Draisa: Yuuzhan Vong high commander (male Yuuzhan Vong)  
Kas Birek; Mandalorian Supercommando (male human)  
Kial Volar; Mandalorian Supercommando (male human)  
Koryn Bralor; Mandalorian Supercommando (male Barabel)  
Kurru Ivat; Yuuzhan Vong warrior (male Yuuzhan Vong)  
Raven Varos; Jedi Apprentice (female human)  
Rev Devieyc; Mandalorian Supercommando (male human)  
Rixa Numeck; Mandalorian Supercommando (male human)  
Ryia Devieyc; Mandalorian Supercommando (male human)  
Tyran Numeck; lieutenant, Mandalorian Supercommando, strike team leader (male human)  
Yunauli Drau; Mandalorian Supercommando, pilot (male human)

 

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[Chapter One]

 

The Tal’galaar was a lethal ship. Constantly refined over several decades of use by the Numeck family the former KDY space yacht was now a premiere bounty hunting vessel. Purchased from a Toydarian dealer on Nar Shadaa by the late Ruima Numeck, the ship had been promptly taken back to Mandalore and handed over to MandalMotors for some custom touches. A beskar-reinforced frame and hull, upgraded weapons and communications systems, overhauled engines, a complete medical suite and armory topped off by a matte-black stealth finish on the already streamlined shape of the ship made the vessel a perfect blend of both beauty and deadly precision. 

The ship was perfectly suited for the task that had been laid before Tyran Numeck and his company of Mandalorian Supercommandos: Infiltrate enemy lines and find Jedi Apprentice Raven Varos. The young Jedi’s job had been to sneak behind the Yuuzhan Vong lines and survey the enemy fleet strength. Apparently the Jedi had done that several times before without detection which led Tyran to belive that she had become too confident in her abilities to avoid the Yuuzhan Vong and had gotten herself captured. He believed he was heading to recover a dead body but the Jedi’s master was pretty sure that she was still alive and being submitted to the Yuuzhan Vong breaking.

Which was unfortunate for the taskforce preparing to jump to Katna Major and begin its liberation campaign of the planet. If the Yuuzhan Vong had already broken Varos then the campaign was going to be even more costly and vicious. A surprised Yuuzhan Vong defense was a difficult thing to defeat, but a prepared defense…that made even his iron nerves stand on edge. He was standing in the communal lounge of the Tal’galaar which was situated in the center of the ship’s upper level. His eyes were fixed on a readout panel on the durasteel wall in front of him counting down the minutes until they dropped back into realspace, or ripped back into it via a dovin basal mine.

His large arms were crossed over his chest and his right hand was absent mindedly scratching at the few weeks of beard growth on his chin. The sound of his comrades preparing for battle echoed around him in an orchestra of sorts and he found it oddly calming. There was just something about the sound of a powerpack clacking down on a plasteel table that put a satisfied smile on his face.

“Remind me again why we got stuck with rescue detail?” Kial Volar asked as he counted out several powerpacks and placed them in the belt pouches of his forest green kama.

“The reason should be obvious Kial.” Tyran said without turning his head from the display “The Mand’alor wants to strengthen our relationship with the Galactic Alliance and rescuing one of their beloved Jettise will do just that.”

Controlled laughter rolled through the Supercommandos in the communal area and even Tyran allowed himself a grin at his own dark humor.

“How long do you think this relationship will last?” a long haired Zabrak named Beluin Ulular asked as he pulled on his helmet, modified to allow his cranial horns to slide through custom slots on the top.

“About as long as a flitnat in a vacuum.” Tyran said back with no hint of humor in his voice.

None of the Mandalorians on the ship had any delusions about what the relationship between the GA and Mandalore was based on. The politicians of the Galactic Alliance were only interested in the combat effectiveness of the Mandalorians mostly because they were the only ones who had beaten the Yuuzhan Vong outright and on more than one occasion. They all knew that once the war was over Mandalore would go back to being the dreary backwater world it had been before the war to the politicians in the GA and Tyran was perfectly happy with that.

He turned away from the display as it reached a count of fifteen minutes and grabbed his WESTAR repeating rifle which was propped up against the bulkhead next to him and slung it over his back as he counted out ten powerpacks for himself from the containers provided by the armory on the Star Destroyer Resistance. He grabbed a handful of smaller packs for his two DL44 blasters, each holstered on either side of his abyssal-black hunting kama.

“Shakedown you gear vode, we drop in fifteen.” He said grabbing his helmet and began running a quick system scan of his armors functions. He extended his right arm away from the group of Mandalorians and blinked twice at a dagger-shaped icon in his heads-up-display and an eighteen inch beskar blade ejected from the housing on his forearm with a heavy, metallic shunk. He repeated the process with his left arm and got the same satisfying results.

A soft hissing sound on his left drew Tyrans attention “This one thinkz those would be a great inveztment.” Koryn Bralor said his dark scales ruffling slightly as he prepared for combat. His eyes were locked on the two blades protruding from the housings on his leader’s forearms and Tyran nodded at the Barabel’s assessment.

“They’ve been useful for cracking crab armor.” Tyran said pointing behind the massive Barabel “you might have to melt down the armor on your tail to get a set though, beskar is rare these days.”

The Barabel lifted his large, beskar plated tail and dropped on the durasteel floor with a very audible thud. “This onez tail haz has been useful in cracking crab armor. As well as theze.” He said flashing razor sharp claws protruding from his fingertips.

Tyran retracted his blades and put a hand on the Barabel’s shoulder without any fear of losing the limb at all. “Believe me, this one knows.”

Tyran hadn’t interacted with very many Barabels in his lifetime but he had grown up with Koryn and his hatchmate Kredd, who was back with the rest of the Mandalorian group on the Resistance prepping a special piece of ordinance, but he was sure the two Barabels were vastly different from the rest of their species. They had been adopted by a member of one of the Bralor clans around the time Tyran had just turned four. The circumstance of their adoption was still unknown to him and the brothers weren’t very forthcoming with the details. It didn’t matter, the brothers had become trusted comrades of his and he was happy to have them at his back.

“Remember though Koryn, this is a stealth mission so no engaging unless the Yuuzhan Vong hurl thudbugs at us first.”

The massive Barabel sissed his acknowledgement and Tyran gave a nod and turned to a black and purple armored woman stuffing a plastiod carry case full of medical supplies “Good to go Dawk?” The woman was young, as were most of the people on the ship. Tyran was among the oldest at nineteen years of age but Dawk was at least four years his junior “You’ll be able to handle her if she isn’t ambulatory?” 

The young woman nodded “Nothing better than a trial by fire right.” She gave a short nervous laugh and continued packing her medical case.

Tyran’s doubts weren’t exactly soothed by her answer and as he turned around and caught his younger brother’s gaze he knew that Rixa wasn’t so sure of Dawk’s abilities anymore than he was. Rixa Numeck gave a subtle shake of his head and Tyran motioned him towards the large table in the center of the room.

“Everyone gather around I want to go over the plan one more time before we enter back into realspace.” Tyran said clipping his helmet to his belt and pausing while his strike team gathered around the table. “Alright, I know you all know that we’re being sent to rescue a Jedi and I know most of you aren’t happy or couldn’t care less but please keep your comments in check as best you can. If the Jedi is alive we don’t want to hurt her feelings, we all know how fragile the Jedi are.” There was some small laughter but it faded quickly “On to the fun stuff. The ERS signal was traced back to one of the four moons orbiting the gas giant Katna-Rae. Katna-II is mostly a dismal swamp with the bleakest weather you might ever find in the galaxy and it is merely a stone’s throw from Katna Major, the largest population center in the system and the next planet targeted for liberation.”

“But it’s also where the Yuuzhan Vong fleet is stationed.” Yunauli Drau said, he was the man responsible for piloting the Tal’galaar and Tyran was very confident in the elder Mandalorians flying skills as he was a veteran pilot for both the Empire and the Rebellion and flew as the leader of the Mandalorian fighter squadron assigned to the Resistance. “Katna-II is in a very unique position relative to Katna Major, their orbits almost mirror each others, the moon being out in front and an almost impassable object for anyone heading to Katna Major.”

“So one way or another we’ll have to pass that moon?” Rixa asked.

“And every Yuuzhan Vong ship that orbits it.” Drau confirmed glumly “You really bit one off this time Tyran.”

“Just fly the ship old timer.” Tyran said with a genuine smile as he turned his head back to his team “When we exit hyperspace Yunauli is going to kick in the ship’s stealth package going whisper silent and leaving a nearly undetectable ion trail. The plan is for him to get as close to the planet as he can without being detected, we’ll all climb into the escape pod and jettison ourselves down to the cheery swamps below.”

“The escape pod doesn’t have any kind of stealth package and it will definetly leave a detectable ion trail Tyran.” Rixa said “How do you expect to out maneuver coralskippers in that rusted hunk of metal.”

Every eye at the table turned towards Tyran hoping he had thought of an ingenious plan to get around that little flaw. 

“I was hoping you would have kept that detail silent little brother.” Tyran said sourly “I had the maintenance crew on the Resistance get the escape pod up to standard safety specifications and had them put a little umph in the drives.”

“No armor plating?” Volar asked.

“It would weigh us down.” Tyran said. “We need all the speed we can get.”

“Well a magma missile will slow us down considerably.” Volar said incredulously “It would slow us down back to our base molecules in fact.”

“We have manual control over the pod so we won’t be flying in a straight line Kial.” Rixa said. “We can pull off a few evasive maneuvers.”

Volar waved his hand dismissively at Rixa and motioned for Tyran to continue. Tyran opened his mouth to carry on the briefing when he was cut off by his second in command.

“Do we know where the Jedi is?” Ryia Devieyc asked.

“I’m getting to that Ryia, I understand the urgent need to get this briefing done but constant interruption isn’t helping.” Tyran said impatiently “We are going to try and steer the pod in the general direction of Mount Piya, the only inhabited area on the planet, its mostly a giant prison facility housing criminals from Katna Major and some other systems looking for a place to dump their undesirables.”

“You think she is there?”

“The ERS isn’t traceable to the millimeter Ryia, but she is on that planet and I’m fairly certain that prison is where she is being held. The GA was able to get a few probe droids in here and it doesn’t look like the planet was Vongified too much.”

“I’m sorry,” Dawk interrupted “What’s an ERS?” Everyone at the table was courteous enough to not shake their heads, almost everyone. 

“Emergency. Response. Signal.” Volar said massaging his temple “You really aren’t that inexperienced. Are you?”

Dawk’s young face reddened at the statement and she looked down as she looked for the right words for the appropriate response.

“An ERS is a small device implanted just behind the ear under the skin. Once pressed it sends a signal back to a receiver.” Tyran said to the young medic and turned back to Kial “The Mand’alor had faith enough in her to place her on the team, if that isn’t proof enough of her experience than I don’t know what is.” Tyran said giving the young medic a quick wink.

“I don’t doubt her medical skills it is her combat skill that worries me.” Volar continued “She has spent more time with her nose in holobooks than with her eyes looking down a scope. It’s easier to patch up wounded soldiers on a cruiser than it is to be in the trenches being the one doing the wounding.”

“I am proficient with various forms of combat ranging from melee to long range to-” She began to defend herself.

“Shab am I talking to a Mandalorian or a protocol droid?!” Volar exclaimed “Tyran tell me the truth do you feel safe with her behind you.”

Tyran stared at the young medic for a few moments, his experienced eyes searching and evaluating what he saw. He saw fear at its most primal level, though not blatantly exposed on her face but still far from hidden. He saw uncertainty and inexperience, a dangerous combination but not one that had not been felt by anyone else at the table. Out of everything he saw the one thing that made him feel certain about the young medic and her potential was that she was sitting at the table with the rest of them ready to drop neck deep into a pit of Yuuzhan Vong warriors. His gaze met both Rixa’s and Ryia’s and they both gave curt nods to their leader, both seeing the same thing in the medic as he did.

He gave her a short smile and turned his head towards Kial “Yes I do.”

Kial shook his head again “I’m not as convinced as you are.”

“Dawk do you know how that blaster works?” Tyran asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you know which end the bolts come out of?”

“Yes.” She said almost disgusted at the question.

“There you go, perfectly qualified.”

Rixa and Ryia gave snorts of amusement and the Barabel sissed in approval.

“Deadmen, we’re all deadmen.” Kial said “Get on with the briefing.”

“Though there doesn’t seem to be much terraforming from the droid images I wouldn’t be surprised to find Yuuzhan Vong flora and other such things. All tech in the prison will most likely be dismantled and decimated so sneaking into the prison won’t be overly difficult.”

“It’ll be sneaking to the prison that will be the trick.” Dawk said.

“See, she knows her stuff.” Tyran said and the young girl beamed “Koryn, Kial, Rixa, Beluin, Dawk and I will make a stealthy approach to the prison while Ryia takes Baydo, Elai, Kas, and Dyir to the landing platform at the peak of the mountain. The Yuuzhan Vong use it as a DZ for personnel and such and I’m hoping once we start making noise in the prison that reinforcements will come from the fleet.”

“You’re hoping for enemy reinforcements?” Dyir Carud asked.

“Not for the reinforcements, for the ship they will use to reach the prison.” Dawk said grasping the plan.

“Right again. When the enemy lands their new wave of reinforcements all you have to do is board it and hold it until we arrive with the Jedi.”

“Five Supercommandos against a ship of scarheads?” Ryia mused “That seems about fair.”

“Don’t get cocky, I’m certain that is how our Jedi got herself in this particular situation.” Tyran said sternly “Get the ship and hold it, we’ll link up with Yunauli at a prearranged rendezvous point and switch over to the Tal’galaar. From there it’s a six hour hop to the staging area where we rearm and prep for the liberation of Katna Major.”

Tyran glanced at the countdown display as it reached four minutes. “Everyone gear up, Yunauli get to the cockpit and get ready to go dark. Rev, get in the hatch turret and keep your head on a swivel.”

Ryia embraced his younger brother for a few seconds before the younger soldier ascended the ladder to the ships one external cannon. Section by section lights starting to shutoff in the ship as Yunauli began to shut down all primary systems except the engines, his hand hovering over the silent-running button on the console next to the pilot’s seat. Suddenly the ship gave a massive shudder and Yunauli hit the steal button immediately.

Tyran made his way to the cockpit grabbing at whatever he could to keep his balance as the ship began to shudder more. Yunauli didn’t even turn his head “Dovin basal.”

Less than a minute after hitting the switch the hum of the Tal’galaar’s main drives disappeared and only the small vibrations coming off of the stealth drives gave any indication that the ship was being propelled at all. The bright streaks of light in the cockpit straightened out into stationary motes of light and the grey ball of sludge that was Katna-II came into view, almost the size of a thumbnail at that distance. But beyond it was the significantly larger Katna Major, the once lush green landscape that had been depicted in all of the briefing session Tyran had been a part of did not resemble the brown and black orb that lay before them.

“Think they destroyed the planet?” Yunauli asked “Like Ithor?”

“No, just altered the atmosphere.” Tyran said “We had intelligence reports of Yuuzhan Vong terraforming the surface and erecting large structures. They wouldn’t do all that and then turn the planet into a wasteland.”

“Or would they?”

“Ryia get everyone into the escape pod.” Tyran said after opening up an encrypted link to his second in command. “Make sure they are all strapped in tight, this might get bumpy.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll join you once Yunauli gets us close enough for launch.” Tyran said “Get it done.”

“You just want to make sure I can handle your ship.” Yunauli said.

Tyran strapped himself into the co-pilots seat and activated an exterior holocam recorder “Might as well get some intelligence for the Fleet.” He said ignoring the veteran pilot’s correct assumption.

Yunauli gave a nod of his head and began to gently increase the speed of which the ship was heading towards the small murky moon.

“Contact, cruiser analog.” Rev said from his position in the hatch turret “It has skip escorts, doesn’t look like they’ve spotted us yet.”

“They won’t” Yunauli said confidently “This tub is as dark as space itself, we’ll be hard to spot.”

Tyran nodded his head feeling quite confident in his ships stealth capabilities but couldn’t help but feel a sense of foreboding growing in his gut as they drew closer to the cruiser-analog and the large ring of asteroids that lay beyond it, encircling the moon of Katna-II. Yunauli put the ship into a gentle dive easing his way under the flight path of the cruiser-analog and its coralskipper escorts.

“Track them Rev, let me know if they so much as twitch in our direction.” The veteran pilot said he whispered the command more than spoke it. There was a confirming hiss of comm static from the hatch turret. 

Tyran absently clenched his fists as the underbelly of the yorik-coral ship came into view of the cockpit and a flight of seven coralskippers flying flanking positions on either side.

“ETA to drop zone?” Tyran asked Yunauli without looking away from the living asteroid floating just over them.

“Three minutes until we break the first line of the enemy fleet, two minutes until we’re within the minimum range to jettison the pod.” Yunauli said his eyes fixed firmly ahead on the enemy fleet as it drew closer.

“You catch that Ryia?”

“Yeah, those minutes might as well be hours.” Ryia sighed. Tyran silently agreed and felt a small surge of relief as they passed under the cruiser-analog and its skip escort.

Yunauli brought the ship in to a steady climb and leveled the vessel out bringing it back on course. Tyran watched in amazement for the next two minutes as the Mandalorian pilot skillfully maneuvered the vessel around the Yuuzhan Vong fleet and brought them to the launching point.

“You better go strap yourself into the pod Tyran,” Yunauli said as he began to flip a series of switches “I’ll start angling the ship for launch.”

“Right, see you at the RV point in a few hours.” Tyran said climbing from the copilot’s chair and making his way back towards the escape pod.

The outer hatch to the pod was still open when he arrived a few moments later and he climbed in and took a seat next to Dyir Carud, the royal blue armored Mandalorian gave him a slight nod.

“Yunauli we’re set.” Rixa said sealing the door from the control panel in front of him. “Open the launch doors when the ship is in position.”

There was static over the comlink for a few tense seconds “Rixa it looks like we’ve got some interested skips heading our way. What do you want me to do?”

“If they come any closer open fire.” Tyran said “Just get us as close as you can.”

“Affirmative.”

There was a deep chugging sound as the hatch turret began to charge up. An odd calming sensation washed over Tyran as he felt his center of gravity shift as the Tal’galaar changed its position, angling towards the planet. His life was no in the hands of Fate and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Once those pod doors opened the only thing between his team and death was the flying skills of his little brother. The steady thumping rhythm of the ships hatch turret firing away echoed through the pod quickly joined by the high pitched whine of the forward laser cannons being fired by Yunauli.

“Well so much for stealth.” Volar said darkly.

Before Tyran could open his mouth to retort a loud clang echoed around the pod followed by a skull shaking boom and a sudden, rapid acceleration. The tube-shaped pod rocketed from the bay at the rear of the Tal’galaar and began to scream towards the grey sphere ahead of them. Tyran noted from a brief glance out of the small cockpit that Yunauli had maneuvered the large space-yacht deep within the Yuuzhan Vong fleet and was now being fired upon from multiple coralskippers and light frigate-angalog cruisers. 

Dawk was sitting directly in front of him with her head down and her fist clenched on her knee and Tyran couldn’t help but reach out and place his much larger hand on top of hers in a gesture of comfort.

“Relax kid, Rixa Numeck is one of the finest starpilots in the galaxy.” Dyir said. He was Tyran’s age, 19, and had seen and done just about as much as Tyran. “If anyone can get us through this mess it’ll be him.”

“If Rixa is so good how come is isn’t co-piloting the Tal’galaar?” Dawk asked.

“Because we need someone who knows how to fly a Yuuzhan Vong ship, he has had access to some simulators and few of the captured vessels the Alliance has.” Ryia said.

Rixa banked the pod to the right, hard, sending Dawk, Ryia, Kial and Kas slamming into their harnesses.

“A little warning next time eh?” Kas Birek shouted towards the cockpit his voice layered with an accent found on Concord Dawn.

“Sit back and shut up.” Rixa yelled back angrily, his usually cool composure was rarely broken and that was a sign to Tyran that things were not going very well up front.

He opened a private link to his brother “HUD link.” He said.

A small window appeared in his own heads-up-display showing everything that his little brother saw, in much smaller detail. A swarm of coralskippers was heading from a large carrier-analog straight toward the escape pod.

“Everyone hold on.” Rixa said through gritted teeth as he put the pod into a roll, spiraling through the swarm.

Bright flashed began to fill the pod as plasma missiles began to erupt in front of, behind and all around the small escape craft. Volar started cursing quickly in Mando’a which launched the large Barabel into a fit of sissing.

“Why are you laughing?!” Volar exclaimed “This is no time for laughter.”

“This one is not laughing at or our situation, this one is laughing at you.”

“You’re lucky we’re about to die or I’d smack some common sense into your scaly head.”

“This one will attribute your remark to battle stress,” Koryn hissed menacingly “But a second comment iz not recommended.”

Volar sank back in his jumpseat as far as he could as the Barabel leaned forward still hissing and his large tail thumping against the durasteel behind him.

“Koryn you can kill Kial after we get the Jedi off that moon and back to the taskforce.” Tyran said genuinely “But for now, as hard as it is to believe, we need him.”

Somehow the Barabel was the only one not being knocked around in his seat by the constant jinking and juking that Rixa was making the pod do to avoid the skip barrage. Koryn nodded his large head and sat back perfectly still in his seat.

A private link appeared on Tyran’s HUD. “You wouldn’t actually let him kill me would you?”

“Depends on how things go planetside.” Tyran ended the link “How long until landfall?” he stated over the shared link.

“Two minutes until we enter the atmosphere.” Rixa said putting the craft through another stomach knotting roll.

He heard a relieved sigh come over the shared link and he hadn’t needed to look at the transmitter ID to tell that it had been Dawk who had let the sigh slip through her lips. The shipped lurched violently as it impacted the outer atmosphere of the planet and the interior grew increasingly hot. 

“Rixa you’ve got……ive skips on yo…..ail.” Yunauli’s voice washed over the comlink, most of it garbled in the static interference from entering the atmosphere.

Tyran could see the murky mountain tops beginning to peak out from under the dismal clouds and he couldn’t help but feel a little better at their chances of making landfall intact.

“Yunauli repeat that last message.” Rixa said as he pointed the craft in the direction of the LZ coordinates he had displayed on his HUD.

“Skips, on your tail!” Yunauli repeated much clearer now that the pod was through the atmosphere.

“How man-” he was cut off by an earsplitting bang and a sudden wave of smoke washing in from the rear of the pod. Tyran felt the pod begin to spin in a downward spiral, rapidly gaining speed. “We’ve been hit, I’ve lost all control of the pod.” Rixa announced as if he had just relayed a weather report. “Hang on to something.”

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” Dawk yelled over the rising whine of alarms gong off in the cockpit. Something solid slammed into the side of the pod sending it into a now rolling downward spiral, the sudden impact jolted free the bolts on a few of the restraint harnesses sending Dawk, Ryia and Kas slamming into Beluin, Koryn and Tyran. Gravity took over and pinned the Mandalorians together.

“What just hit us?” Kial yelled as Rixa tried to regain some form of control over the pod.

“Coralskipper.” Rixa said back

The last thing Tyran Numeck saw before things started to go really wrong was the rapidly expanding view of a mountainside. A violent impact followed tearing everyone from their restraints and throwing them around inside the pod like a Twi’lek shaking up an intoxicating beverage at a tapcaf. There was yelling and screaming, all involuntary, natural reflexes to the event occurring around the eleven Supercommandos. Every now and then it was pierced by the sound of wrenching durasteel and breaking permaglass. There was one final violent impact against something wet and it was the last thing Tyran felt before blacking out.


	2. Chapter 2

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[Chapter Two]

“How large was the ship?” High Commander Falas Draisa inquired of the young warrior standing before him. Bearing little in the way of scarring or ritual marks of any kind the warrior was of little interest to the Yuuzhan Vong high commander, but he had witnessed the event unfold before the Grand Temple of Yun-Yammka.

“Not large, more of an escape vessel than anything Commander. I watched as it was obliterated over the Temple. Justice from Yun-Yammka for invading his sacred ground.”

“What of survivors?”

“I don’t believe any infidels would have survived such a crash and if they had they wouldn’t live long, critical injuries must have been inflicted. I watched as one of our fighters rammed into the vessel to prevent it from crashing through the Temple. The violence of the impact was like that I’ve never seen before.”

“You watched as an infidel vessel crashed outside the Temple of Yun-Yammka, and you didn’t go investigate the scene to be sure that no infidels desecrated the holy temple of our War God?!” Falas said slowly, his voice quite laced with venom and the young warrior stood silent searching for an appropriate response. “You’re dismissed.” Falas said feeling that the young warrior would not have much more of anything useful to tell him. He gave a subtle wave of his hand to the large warrior behind the witness, without question the large and heavily scarred warrior wrapped his thick arm around the neck of the smaller warrior and gave a sharp twist resulting in a sickening crack and a gurgling sound as the young warrior fell to the ground. “Justice from The Slayer for not ensuring his holy grounds continued to be unsullied by the filth of the Infidels.”

“High Commander, I would volunteer to search the crash site for survivors and ensure what the weakling has not.” The large warrior said.

“No Kurru I want you to speak with the Jeedai again and make sure she has no means of contacting the other Infidels that we haven’t yet discovered.” Falas said scratching at his split chin “Have your finest warriors search out the crash site and have that thing disposed off.” He said motioning to the dead body on his palace floor.

“As you command.” The warrior said with a salute motioning to two of his subordinates to remove the body and relaying the commands he’d been given into a shoulder villip. 

Falas turned out towards the large viewing membrane that looked over the treacherous terrain outside his command post, he wasn’t overly worried about their being survivors, from all accounts he had heard the one thing they’d all had in common had been the fact that the crash had been a particularly vicious one and most infidels were fragile creatures at best. If there had been anyone on the craft they were more than likely dead, his concern was the ship that had engaged his picket ships in orbit. What was its purpose for entering this system and why had it launched the smaller vessel and then promptly jumped back out of the system.

The only answer he could come up with was that it had something to do with the Jeedai and if she was aware of some kind of rescue attempt Kurru Ivat would promptly discover that information and he would also discover how she had relayed her whereabouts to the other Jeedai.

“Kurru I do not want our Jeedai guest killed but she must be broken this time, you have permission to do whatever you must short of killing her to get the information we need.” He said to his subordinate without turning from the viewing membrane. 

“As you command.” Ivat replied quickly

“Be patient,” Falas droned on “The Jeedai will be sacrificed to Yun-Yammka, once I am certain she has nothing of value to further tell us.” The High Commander could practically feel the smile that spread across the torn face of his subordinate.

 

***********

 

Pain.

That’s what had made up the existence of Raven Varos for the last week, or was it two weeks, three? She had lost count of how many days she had been pinned to the yorik coral wall deep within the winding tunnels of the Yuuzhan Vong stronghold. She hadn’t lost track of how many times she had been submitted to the Breaking. The count had reached five and it was sure to reach further than that, more than likely to the point where she was a broken shell of herself both mentally and physically ultimately leading to her execution. 

At first it had been brutal physical attacks that had left her injured and weakened, the left side of her face was swollen to the point that vision in her left eye was obscured. She was positive at least five of her ribs were broken or cracked because when she inhaled it was as if one of her captures had stuck her with a knife and constantly twisted the blade. Those breakings had all been a tactic to break her mental stability.

Now every time the large Yuuzhan Vong came into the room it took all of her willpower to not scream in terror and beg for mercy but she was determined not let her captors have that satisfaction, but she was starting to doubt how long she would be able to hold out. He would ask her questions and when she didn’t answer she received a strike from an amphistaff, the snake like weapon had dug its fangs into her back and delivered its toxic venom over and over and each time a second Yuuzhan Vong warrior would apply a viscous substance to the wounds on her back. She had assumed that it was to ward off the effects of the amphistaff venom because she hadn’t died yet from the mass amounts of venom being introduced to her system. She knew that had to be some kind of counter agent to the venom and she knew it wasn’t being applied to her as a gesture of mercy from her captors, but just another way to ensure that she didn’t die from the bites and to further break her mental will.

After every session she was pinned back against the wall and left in almost impenetrable darkness, after which she used what time she had to enter a healing trance and begin to repair some of the damage done by her captors. It didn’t help dull the pain she felt but at least it made her that much stronger and somewhat ready to deal with the next round of punishment, physically anyway.

Her one desperate seed of hope was the ERS emitter buried under the skin behind her ear, there was no external lights on the device that showed through her skin or any kind of mark that would give the Yuuzhan Vong reason to check for that kind of thing. She had hoped it had been activated when the Yuuzhan Vong had begun their initial round of physical violence towards her. The device was activated by touch and her captors had grabbed her by the neck and slammed her head against the yorik coral wall more than once. She was certain their fingers had touched the area the device had been implanted but she still had no way of knowing whether it had been activated or not. She wouldn’t until a taskforce arrived to rescue her and she was sure she would know when that happened because the Yuuzhan Vong would be rushing about the structure like a swarm of Jabiim hunting wasps defending their disturbed nest.

So far no such activity had occurred and none of her captors had come to question her about anything that would give her a reason to think that anything like that may have happened. On a whim she reached out in the Force and as she suspected she felt only the hollow void left by the Yuuzhan Vong. She felt the presence of the wildlife of Katna-II, nothing more than a giant mudball in space. That’s why she figured the Yuuzhan Vong hadn’t changed the planet as drastically as they had others, it was already dark and dismal and void of any form of the technology that they found so offensive to their religion. From the little she had been able to record before being captured, the Yuuzhan Vong had done nothing more than erect several yorik coral structures at various sites on the surface. The largest being a temple meant for their war god Yun-Yammka, which also served as their base of operations.

She opened her eyes and licked her lips, which were swollen to twice their size and as cracked and dry as the ones on the hideous faces of some of her captors. Her throat was dry and itchy and it was sore from countless hours of screaming, she had little doubt that her voice might never be the same as it had been before her capture and she found herself somewhat scared of the prospect of sounding like a Hutt for the rest of her days, if they weren’t already on a countdown nearing zero. She reached out in the Force one more time and felt the empty void and the small presence of what animals the Yuuzhan Vong hadn’t exterminated yet and then she felt it. A surge of rage and anger unlike anything she had ever felt before and that’s when she knew she wasn’t the only living being on this planet. 

Suddenly there were multiple presences flooding her way, at least a dozen or so. Each one of them different than the first, some scared, some angry, some concentrated on a single task set before them. She began to believe that she was going to be rescued soon but told herself not to get too excited there was every possibility that those presences were nothing more than people who had been captured by the Yuuzhan Vong and delivered here to receive the same kind of treatment as her. Still though she couldn’t keep a smile off of her face, until the entry membrane to her room opened and Kurru Ivat entered, his well used amphistaff coiled in a whip form in his four fingered hand.

Again she felt the urge to scream and found herself trying to draw her body back into the unyielding yorik coral wall behind her. The Yuuzhan Vong warrior let a sneer cross his face as he drew near.

“Jeedai I have more questions for you.” He growled at her as a few warriors he’d brought with him removed the blorash jelly from around her wrists, waist and ankles and repositioned her in a kneeling stance before Ivat “And you will answer them.”

“I….wouldn’t…..count….on it.” She wheezed through her damaged throat.

The comment earned her a backhand across the face “I have been given permission from the High Commander to do as I wish in order to get the answers we seek.”

A tremendous amount of fear trickled down her spine but she returned her gaze to the warrior and fixed him with a defiant stare, ignoring the tears streaming down her face.

“You think yourself brave Jeedai?” Ivat asked uncoiling his amphistaff “We shall see how brave you are.” He walked around her just as he had done in all the previous interrogations cracking his amphistaff in the air as a successful intimidation tactic. “Tell me why a small infidel vessel would enter this system, drop an escape pod and then promptly leave the system.” He inquired.

“They had a bad travel agent.” Raven replied.

Ivat snarled and struck out with the amphistaff and Raven tried not to scream too loud as the dagger like fangs of the living weapon dug into her back for the uncountable time. The venom rushed into her body as if she had acid in her veins burning through every blood cell she had. Ivat did not remove the creature from her back as he done so before, instead he let it stay there pumping more and more of the venom into her in an agonizing wave after wave of searing pain. She began to scream louder feeling as if her throat was going to tear itself apart. The amphistaff retracted and a smaller warrior applied the venom absorbing salve as usual. The substance did not remove the pain the venom had caused but at the same time she could feel the venom being removed from her system. The pain from the amphistaff overrode the burning sensation caused by the salve itself.

“Why do you make this hard on yourself Jeedai?” Ivat asked again “Answer my question and your sacrifice will be all the sooner. Why would an infidel ship enter this system?!” he demanded. She continued sobbing choking on what little saliva had made its way into her throat, which felt like it would be ripped to shreds by the gentlest of breaths. “Tell me Jeedai! Do you have a communication device? Did you signal other infidels to come to your aid?”

That’s when she knew for certain that the dozen or so presences she had felt were not those of prisoners but those of her saviors. The glimmer of hope she had been clinging to suddenly became a very real beacon shining bright on the horizon. She lifted her head and blew a lock of her black hair out of her bruised face.

“I have no communication device, I don’t know what the ship was doing here.” She said her voice cracking and stinging her throat with every word. “But I hope that whatever they were doing is bad news for you scarhead.”

Ivat snarled something to one of the warriors in the room and the warrior promptly exited and came back holding what looked like a human liver in his hand. Raven watched as the warrior handed Ivat the creature that was sure to be bad news for her. Ivat grabbed the liver in his left hand and gave it a hard squeeze, a small dot of a glowing substance landed on the tip of his index finger and a wisp of smoke appeared the moment the substance hit his skin. He closed his eyes and savored the pain the acid sent racing down his arm and fixed Raven with a very, very large smile.

“I don’t believe you.” He said walking towards her and kneeling down so he was eye level with her. He pressed his acid coated finger to the bare skin under her right eye and she immediately began to try to pull away as the acid began to burn into her skin. Ivat grabbed her by the back of her hair and pressed her face against his finger and the scream she emitted was as animalistic as anything the Yuuzhan Vong warrior had heard out in the swamps of the planet. He pulled his finger away and felt satisfied with the red circle that had appeared where he had touched her, the skin around it blackened.

“Do you wish to continue lying to me Jeedai or would you like to have another taste of the voka’s acid?” She was sobbing again, her face feeling as if it had just been struck by the raw power of lightning. 

“Please….no more.” She found herself begging and every Yuuzhan Vong in the room adopted a look of satisfaction at having finally broken the Jeedai. “Please.”

“Answer my question!” Ivat snarled his nose less face mere inches from his. “I have touched you with my bare hands and have become unclean all in the service of the War God and I grow tired of dealing with you and your frail body. You are unworthy of being in my presence and I promise you that the Priests will make your sacrifice a drawn out and painful ordeal if I don’t get my answer!”

Raven drew her head up and tried to work some saliva into her mouth in order to form the correct words. She looked him in the eyes fixing him with a defiant stare and spat into the disfigured mass in front of her. Ivat drew back, enraged by her action he pulled a silver cylinder from his belt and Raven instantly recognized it.

Her lightsaber.

“Having already dirtied myself in the service of Yun-Yammka and you appearing to have become accustomed to several of my methods I think a new approach is in order.” He growled at her as he eyed the cylinder in his hand studying it. If she could have had some use of her hands she would have tried to reach out for the weapon in the Force and used it to free herself, but the blorash jelly had completely coated her hands. She gasped when she heard the all too familiar snap-hiss of her weapon being activated and she cringed when she saw the room was now bathed in the purple light being emitted by her violet blade. 

“Blasphemy.” One of the other warriors yelled “That is an infidel weapon and you have the nerve to activate it within the Temple of our War God?!”

“It is in the service of Yun-Yammka that I activate this weapon, in an effort to protect this Temple from the filth of the infidels do I further dirty myself. If the Gods wish to punish me for this than I will take whatever punishment they assign to me.” Ivat roared back swinging out with the weapon and lopping the accuser’s head off at the shoulders.

He turned his gaze back to Raven and she tried to swallow “My life may be forfeit now but I will not have this temple dirtied by you or any of your allies.” He pointed the blade at her throat and she feared that maybe her rescue had come too late. That was when the entry membrane opened into life and a large Yuuzhan Vong enshrouded by a blood-red cape embedded into his shoulders entered the room.

“High Commander!” Ivat said turning off the lightsaber and saluting his superior

“Your scouts have reported in Kurru.” Falas said fixing his eyes on Raven “They have encountered infidel resistance and have begun to take casualties.”

Ivat snarled and made a move to backhand Raven again but Falas stopped him “You have sullied yourself enough for one day Kurru. I want you to take as many warriors as you can muster and engage the infidels, stop them from entering the Temple.”

“As you command.”

Kurru and his one remaining warrior departed the room at a fast pace and High Commander Falas Draisa turned his gaze from the captured Jeedai to his now filth ridden subordinate. “You are strong Jeedai, that I will give you, but I would not hope to be saved by your allies.” He said turning back to her “They are vastly outnumbered.”

 

***********

 

“They just keep coming!” Beluin yelled as another wave of razorbugs impacted the fallen tree the Zabrak was using as cover.

“Hold the line!” Ryia yelled back as he opened fire with his repeating blaster burning a hole through the armor of a rushing Yuuzhan Vong warrior. When the warrior fell Ryia turned his attention to the group of wounded Mandalorians propped up against the shattered hull of the escape pod. “Dawk I need a sitrep!”

“Not good.” she yelled back “Koryn is still alive but unresponsive, Baydo’s arm is dislocated and more than likely a concussion, Tyran is in the same state as Koryn.”

“Shab.” Ryia said “Try to get Tyran and Koryn up on their feet, we wont be able to hold this position much longer.”

The young medic didn’t respond and went back to work on trying to revive the strike team leader and the unconscious Barabel. Baydo was propped up against a sheared piece of durasteel hull, safe from the incoming alien projectiles. Dawk came to a skidding halt at his side.

“How’s your head?” she asked grabbing hold of his arm.

The older and larger Mandalorian gave a slight shake of his head “Visions clearer than it was, my arm isn’t feeling so great though.”

“Well considering it was almost ripped free of your body I can see why it might hurt some.” she said “It has to be popped back into place.”

“Do it.” the Mandalorian said instantly “I need to get back in the fight and you need to get Koryn and Tyran up and in fighting order.”

Dawk nodded and grabbed hold of the dislocated arm. It was a lot heavier than the medic had thought it would be. Years of physical military training and farm work had turned Baydo into one of the more muscular members of the strike team. She wasn’t certain she had the physical strength to achieve the desired effect. She looked around the crater at the rest of the strike team looking for the least occupied Supercommando. Considering that they were all fighting for their lives, they were all pretty occupied.

Her gaze came to rest on the team’s heavy weapons expert, a tall Mandalorian with dreadlocked hair and spiraling tribal tattoos down his arms. She could see the tattoos because Kas Birek’s red on black armor had no sleeves to it. Just a body cuirass, shoulder pads, greaves, gauntlets and boots. He was the largest human member of the team, outsized only by the Barabel.

“Kas I need some assistance here.” she yelled over the shared link. His head turned in her direction and hesitated for a brief moment before sprinting over to her side.

“What do you need?” his deep voice boomed in her helmet.

“I need you to pop his arm back in its socket, I don’t have the strength to do it.” she pointed over to where Baydo was sitting.

Kas nodded and quickly darted over to his injured comrade, gave him a quick pat on the uninjured shoulder and grabbed hold of the dislocated limb at the wrist and elbow and gave an unceremonial shove far more forceful than anything than Dawk could have done. There was an audible click and an short outcry of pain over the teams shared link followed by Baydo’s heavy breathing.

“Thanks vod, I owe you one.” he said.

Kas hauled him to his feet and shoved a light repeating blaster into his hands “We have to get out of here in one piece before you can owe me one.”

The two men hurried off to fill in weak points within the perimeter that had been created around the crashed pod. Dawk ran over to Tyran and removed his helmet. She didn’t have any stinksalts on her, nor did anyone else on the team. But that would have been to easy. She stared at him for a few seconds and simply gave him a hard slap across the face.

“Wake up!” she yelled.

A sudden roar filled the air and Dawk looked up and around the battlefield for the source. Molten rock began to rain down around the Mandalorians, making smaller craters within the already massive crater the team was situated in.

Rixa was at Dawk’s side in an instant.

“Whats your status, we need to move.” his voice was calm and stable.

Dawk gave a defeated shrug “I can’t get either of them to respond to stimuli.” her voice wasn’t as stable as his.

“Then we’ll have to carry them.”

“I’m not carrying the Barabel.” Volar’s voice echoed over the shared link.

“You’ll carry who I tell you to carry.” Ryia’s voice joined in. “Until Tyran gets back in action, I’m in charge.”

Rixa paid no attention to the argument the two men were having while simultaenously fighting off their attackers. His gaze never left the ground where his brother still lay unconscious. “Elai we need to move, got eyes on any defensible locations from your vantage point?”

The Kiffar sniper was positioned in one of the many trees that surrounded the front of the pod. The tree the red armored sniper had chosen was just over twelve meters high and provided a decent view of the battlefield.

“Rixa I have eyes on what looks like a cave entrance, it’s the only defendable position in the immediate area.”

“Ryia did you copy that?”

“Affirmative.”

Rixa was in the process of waiting for Ryia to give the retreat order when a solid mass slammed into him from the back. A searing pain raced up from just under his shoulder blade. He wheeled around and a second and third mass slammed against his chest plate knocking him off his feet and onto his back. The razorbug that had lodged itself into a weakpoint in his armor penetrated even deeper as he landed on it. He tried to sit up but the two thudbugs that had hit him in the chest had driven every ounce of air from his lungs and he was still struggling to catch his breath.

Dawk brought her blaster rifle up with the speed and precision to be expected of a soldier engaged in their first battle. She fired off a quick burst into the large Yuuzhan Vong warrior who had felled Rixa, the three laser bolts merely blackened the already dark crab armor of the warrior. He roared at the small soldier and brought his amphistaff into its rigid form and began moving at a quick pace toward Dawk. She switched her blaster rifle over to full auto and depressed the trigger. 

The crab armor began to smoke as it took impact after impact and the warrior began to move in a tight zig-zag pattern and the maneuver immediately affected the accuracy of the Mandalorian medic. He drew to within a meter of her and gave a savage swing with his amphistaff that would have connected with her head had she not performed a combat roll to avoid the strike. She came out of the roll behind the warrior but wasn’t fast enough to avoid the second swing of the amphistaff. The living weapon connected with her body in between her shoulder blades and knocking her down so she was now parallel with Tyran’s unconscious form. Her arms and fingers were numb and her nerve endings were exploding in little eruptions of fire within her body. A large boot came down on the small of her back and she cried out as a new wave of pain hit her. 

An equally large hand grabbed her by the back of her neck and hauled her to her feet. That was when she came face to face with her Yuuzhan Vong opponent. His face was nothing more than a mix of torn flesh and gold angular tattoos. His four front teeth were celarly visible through a missing patch of flesh on his upper lip and where the should have been a nose was nothing more than two ragged slits. Her visor fogged as his breath hit it and she couldn’t see as he pulled out his coufee, a knife like weapon. His grip tightened on her throat and she found herself wandering where the rest of the team were and why none of them had come to her aid yet.

Then again she was just a rookie to them, some one who was just as expendable as any Galactic Alliance or Imperial Remnant foot soldier to the Mandalorians. It was only after this though crossed her mind that she saw the knife in the Yuuzhan Vong’s hand and saw the evil intent in the alien’s eyes. His arm drew back and promptly shot forward.

Dawk hit the ground and remained still.


End file.
